Traditionally there are two types of beverage dispensers, those which dispense a beverage into an open drinking receptacle and those which dispense a pre-closed container of beverage, for example a can, commonly known as beverage vending machines.
Beverage dispensers which produce a beverage from a concentrate and a diluent are advantageous in that they require only shipping of concentrate, not of diluted beverage. These type of dispensers are known to dispense a variety of beverages from different concentrates. These machines typically either have one dispense nozzle per beverage or have a single nozzle and the user manually places a cup under said nozzle.
In some circumstances it is desirable to locally produce a beverage, package it in a closed container, and then dispense the container containing the beverage. Such machines are generally limited to a single product, e.g. water, and do not offer the variety of product demanded by customers. To do so would either require a complex positional mechanical solution to place a packet under the desired dispense nozzle or alternatively use a common nozzle. Any miss alignment of package and nozzle will result in spillages inside the machine where they are not visible and could possibly sit for some time before being cleaned. Furthermore, the use of a common nozzle is undesirable due to cross contamination of flavours.
In addition, in such a vending machine application the parts of the machine used to produce the beverage are not easily cleaned as they are generally enclosed within the machine which is only opened by a service engineer resulting in a machine that is hard to maintain in a clean and safe condition.
It is the purpose of the present invention to provide a sanitary beverage dispenser for filling and dispensing containers of different flavoured beverage.